Tribeca Film Festival: A Cinematic Hat Tip to Everything New York

Nod to Big Apple Underscores Reinvigoration of Lower Manhattan

Director One9, left, and writer Erik Parker will premiere their 'Time Is Illmatic' on Wednesday night, the opening of the Tribeca Film Festival.
Natalie Keyssar for The Wall Street Journal

By

Steve Dollar

Updated April 21, 2014 12:38 p.m. ET

When the Tribeca Film Festival opens its 13th edition on Wednesday, it will embrace a New York state of mind.

Kicking off the 12-day festival is the world premiere of "Time Is Illmatic," a documentary about the Brooklyn-born rap performer Nas.

The film's title echoes a line from Nas's 1994 hip-hop album "Illmatic," which the film celebrates—as well as its 20 years of influencing music. The screening, at the Beacon Theatre, will be followed by a live performance from Nas.

For organizers, this year's nod to the Big Apple underscores an underlying reason for the festival, founded after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001: the reinvigoration of lower Manhattan.

Among the festival's 89 movies are profiles of colorful civic symbols and cultural institutions. They include "Famous Nathan," a documentary about the legendary Coney Island vendor Nathan's FamousNATH-3.40% Frankfurters made by the founder's grandson; "When the Garden Was Eden," actor Michael Rapaport's tribute to the vintage Knicks; and biographical portraits of the public intellectual Susan Sontag and jazz trumpeter Clark Terry, both native New Yorkers.

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Alfred Molina and John Lithgow in 'Love Is Strange'
Jeong Park

Love stories veer from neurotic vampires in Williamsburg ("Summer of Blood") to the Manhattan gay couple who marry only to find themselves suddenly homeless ("Love Is Strange"). Among darker-themed stories, there's "Five Star," a Brooklyn gang drama, and "Every Secret Thing," a suburban-New York crime film directed by Amy Berg ("West of Memphis") and written by Nicole Holofcener ("Enough Said").

Erik Parker, the writer and producer of "Time Is Illmatic," said he couldn't imagine a better spot to premiere the film, which was directed by the multimedia artist One9.

"It's a New York story," he said. "It's a New York film. I wouldn't want to take it anywhere else on the 20-year anniversary, it's got to be New York."

The selection also marks a win for the Tribeca Film Institute, the festival's nonprofit organization, which supports some 60 independent projects each year. Although it can claim its third straight Academy Award nominee in as many years—the most recent is "Cutie and the Boxer"—"Illmatic" marks the first time a film backed by the institute has been chosen to open the festival.

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Nathan and Ida Handwerker are featured in the documentary 'Famous Nathan.'
Daniel Farrell

More

WSJ's Barbara Chai speaks with Robert De Niro and Jane Rosenthal, co-founders of the Tribeca Film Festival, about the future of film and the many music films in this year's festival.

Watch a clip from the film "Time Is Illmatic," a documentary about rapper Nas's 1994 album "Illmatic" which will open the 2014 Tribeca Film Festival on April 16. (Photo/Video: Illa Films)

The 2014 Tribeca Film Festival includes a number of stories that feature or are set in New York, including "Gabriel," "Time is Illmatic," "Famous Nathan," "Love Is Strange," "Summer of Blood," and the short documentary "70 Hester Street." (Photo: Courtesy "Gabriel")

The movie, which focuses on how Nas's work was shaped by his childhood in Long Island City's Queensbridge Houses and his relationship with his father, musician Olu Dara, "wasn't just a sycophantic music documentary," said Beth Janson, the institute's executive director.

"It really read as a father-son story first, and then as a portrait of growing up in a very specific part of New York City which we often don't see accurate portrayals of," she said.

The story struck One9 and Mr. Parker in 2004, when the longtime friends encountered Mr. Dara, a charismatic presence in city jazz circles since the 1970s.

Then the music editor at Vibe, Mr. Parker had a notion to expand on the magazine's coverage of "Illmatic's" 10th anniversary.

"I said, 'Let's do something bigger," he recalled. "For some reason, we thought we were going to shoot and be done with it."

After spending hours with Mr. Dara, they realized that wouldn't be the case. One9 was impressed, he said, "not just by the pride [Mr. Dara] has in Nas but also their heritage, where they came from, the blues, their family legacy."

Though the filmmakers, both 42 years old, received their subject's blessing early on, it took years for the project to coalesce. Assistance from the Ford Foundation included a 2013 production grant for $200,000 from its JustFilms initiative, which allowed the pair to work on it full-time.

They traveled to Mr. Dara's hometown of Natchez, Miss., discovering undeveloped rolls of 8mm film from the 1950s that were used in the documentary.

They tracked down Nas's brother, who uses the name Jungle and whose perspective lends unpredictable counterpoint to the subject's memories of life in the projects.

In 2013, the Tribeca Institute also backed the documentary with a grant through Tribeca All Access. The program is one of nine administered by the institute, which will award $2.1 million this year in sums ranging from $10,000 to $100,000, Ms. Janson said.

A Tribeca All Access Alumni grant this year helped the pair complete the film, and they received the inaugural Candescent Award, also overseen by the institute.

Although seven Tribeca Institute-funded films were selected for the festival this year, the institute's support is no guarantee of an invitation. The staff members are, however, persistent advocates.

"We are probably the most annoying producers the programmers have," Ms. Janson said.

Likewise, such films may premiere elsewhere or never play in Tribeca at all—such as the Sundance Film Festival favorites "Dear White People" and "Obvious Child," which had their New York debuts at the New Directors/New Films program last month.

For the filmmakers, it's about much more than the glory of opening night.

"We put Nas on the level of a Shakespeare of our generation, someone who represented our story in a way that was poetic and artistic," Mr. Parker said.

"Illmatic," he added, was "about seeking validation and understanding as a people, as a generation. It gives a voice to people that we weren't listening to at that time. Now you can hear it."

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